For a variety of electronic devices such as, for example, mobile phones and digital cameras, input apparatuses used by users to operate terminals have been developed in a variety of manners according to functions and usages of each electronic device. Many of such input apparatuses have mechanical keys or buttons preliminarily disposed on faces of bodies of the electronic devices, or keys or buttons displayed on a touch panel, so that the users can perform input operations by directly pressing them with fingers or the like.
Generally, one operation (or program) is assigned to one switch of such keys and the like. For the mobile phone, for example, when a pressure input to a numerical keypad is detected, a number corresponding to each key is output. Or, when a pressure input to a menu key is detected, a menu panel is displayed.
However, if the user wishes to perform a plurality of operations continuously and operates keys, each of which is assigned with an individual operation, the user must move the finger back and forth to press desired keys, which may result in troublesome and annoying operations.
In order to deal with such a problem, there is proposed an input apparatus capable of assigning a plurality of operations to pressures applied on the input apparatus for example, see Patent Document 1).
This type of input apparatus allows the user to separately perform a plurality of inputs by adjusting the pressure of one operation to press one key.
As an example of typical usages of such an input apparatus, there is a shutter button of a camera. In using a mobile terminal having a digital camera function, an operator turns on a function to adjust AE (Auto Exposure) and AF (Auto Focus) by performing “halfway pressing”, which is a first level input. In that state, by performing “full pressing”, which is a second level input, an operation to release the shutter is performed. Since the first level input and the second level input are received when a pressure load on the key satisfies different predetermined loads for each of the levels respectively, it is possible to perform two different operations with one key.